


Come, let me love you

by rosalindscotch



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Consider this my contribution to Hot MASH Summer babyyyyy, It took a stupid amount of time but I hope people enjoy, M/M, This is uhhh my first ever completed fic! I'm so excited!, This show has been my primary source of joy since the summer so this is extremely self-indulgent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:14:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28234506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosalindscotch/pseuds/rosalindscotch
Summary: Sleepover in the Swamp, wherein Hawkeye's in a bad mood, BJ plots a party and there's two idiots in love (guess who)
Relationships: B. J. Hunnicutt/Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce
Comments: 18
Kudos: 83





	Come, let me love you

In terms of formative adolescent experiences, Hawkeye had come to view the sleepover as potentially the most influential. Under the guise of a sleepover he’d had his first kiss with a boy. It was from that moment on too that he knew what it meant to hold romantic, and later, platonic fondness for another man; Tommy was always good at holding open those emotional doors for him, gentleman that he was. He’d learned how to perfectly land a joke at sleepovers, how to mix illicit drinks and tell great stories, basically learning how to become the person he was. He never gave it much thought on a regular basis, but if he really tried to pinpoint it, he could trace many central parts of himself back to the raucous intimacy of a shared night together with his friends. 

All that being said, he had assumed that by the time he became an adult, sleepovers as events would center on a party of two instead, and the less romantic aspects, such as sleeping in close quarters on uncomfortable surfaces with far too many people, would be relegated to the past. Then again, he had also figured that after going through two world wars, the US might take a break from the fighting business and give themselves some downtime before starting a new conflict. He was now wrong on two fronts. 

That was how he found himself sharing a Swamp full of strangers for the second time. Again, he’d assumed that first time, when Trap and Henry were still around and heat was scarce, that he’d never have to pack so many people into his tent again. But instead, with too many wounded filling post-op and more on the way come morning (or so Radar said), they were making do with the space they had. 

Hawkeye shifted as the door opened yet again and Father Mulcahy left the Swamp to visit the latrine, meeting BJ’s eyes as he did so and making his annoyance known with what he hoped was a petulant look. If anything it only put a grin on BJ’s face (the schmuck), making him laugh at Hawkeye’s unvoiced griping. “Having trouble getting ready for your beauty sleep Hawk?”

“At least I’m trying for some; I can see you’ve been doing without recently,” he snarked back, sharper than he usually would be but still involuntarily continuing the bit. 

“Recently?” grinned BJ, only smiling wider at his thorniness. “Then I’d been doing well before, I take it?”

The door was thrown open again before Hawkeye could retort, bringing in a shivering Radar. “Radar,” Hawkeye said, trying to sound commanding through his chattering teeth, “If you don’t get your cute little toes in here and shut the door behind them, I’ll freeze them off you and feed them to your guinea pigs like hors d’oeuvres.”

“Dark,” BJ commented mildly.

“Mmm, you’re right,” Hawkeye considered. “Maybe I’ll save myself the trouble and just freeze the guinea pigs to eat instead. Lot less work that way.”

“Jeez Hawkeye,” Radar said, scandalized and jerking the door firmly closed behind him. “You can’t just threaten a guys’ animals like that, it’s not right.”

“A pig’s a pig’s a pig,” BJ said brightly, poking at Radar’s toes through his boots as he did so. Radar jumped to avoid his prodding fingers, bustling over to a cot on the far side of the Swamp and safely away from BJ’s quips and Hawk’s admittedly foul mood. 

BJ seemed to concur, continuing to talk to Radar across the jammed mess of cots. “You’ll have to forgive Hawk; that’s what fourteen hours in OR will do to you.”

“No no no,” Hawkeye cut in, “That’s what the freezing, bitter cold, a hundred casualties in a week, worse food than usual, no mail from home, ice freezing the still, two overnight shifts in post-op AND fourteen hours in OR will do to you.”

“Pierce,” Charles drawled, his voice entering the room before he did as the door opened to admit him. “Can you please cease your tireless whinging, my parents back on Beacon Hill can hear you.”

“Oh forgive me, Charles, for interrupting your thrilling impression of the Saint of Self-Righteousness,” Hawkeye sneered at him. “You expect me to pity you when both the overnight post-op shifts I took were originally yours? Give me a break, you should be _thanking_ me. Profusely!”

Charles turned as he set his hat down on his cot, giving Hawkeye an irritating look of condescension he got when he thought Hawkeye was in need of a teachable moment. “It’s rather amazing, Pierce, how singular you think yourself to be in suffering. As if the rest of us were simply dropped into Korea this morning and have no grasp of the horrors and daily malignancies this blight of war wreaks.” Adopting a tone of mock wonder, he leaned forward to rest his chin in his hand. “How truly extraordinary it is, to think the rest of us were not also performing surgery and feeling the chill steal into our bones alongside you. Are you laboring under the delusion that you are fighting this war on your own?”

“I think that was Charles-speak for ‘we’re all in this together,’” BJ supplied helpfully. 

“I hope your mouth’s okay Charles, I wouldn’t want any of those big sharp words to have scraped it on their way out,” Hawkeye said, ignoring them both and turning to lie down again on his cot. 

What he’d said so bluntly to Radar was true; the grime and boredom and hellishness of the camp could usually be kept at bay with a few well-stirred martinis and BJ’s presence by his side, but the demons were creeping in more steadily than normal this week. The rearrangement of the Swamp alone for this impromptu slumber party should have been enough to lift his spirits. The frozen and therefore useless still had been moved to the far corner to consolidate space, allowing BJ to move his cot right next to Hawkeye and close enough in the night to make his stomach thrill. In some ways it felt not unlike having Tommy over again, being fifteen and experiencing _feelings_ for the first time. His general temper however, accompanied by what felt like half the camp packed into his tent, was not making for the most romantic of evening moods. He felt like giving up the whole thing as a wash and falling asleep as soon as possible instead, with the taste of something like disappointment and a vaguely-missed opportunity sharp on his tongue. 

Under the renewed general chatter of the room that Father Mulcahy and Colonel Potter brought with them as they entered, Hawkeye heard BJ turn over in his adjoining cot, and felt his gaze boring into his back. 

“I saw you get mail from home this week,” BJ finally said, in a low tone just for the two of them. Even in a room full of people BJ somehow made it feel intimate, and for all Hawkeye wanted to be mad he could feel himself thaw. 

“A scintillating observation Captain,” he replied softly, hoping to cut this off at the pass. “What’s next, counting how many times I brush each tooth?”

“You told Radar you didn’t get mail from home. But you did, I saw you get it. Hell, Radar himself handed it to you.” Not an accusation, but another simple observation in simple Hunnicutt fashion. Hawkeye sighed, and turned over to face him. 

“Would you call two catalogues, a donation request from my congressman and the parish newsletter heartfelt notes from home?” he asked BJ. 

A look of understanding dawned on BJ’s face, although Hawkeye suspected his question only confirmed what BJ already knew: there was a big difference between getting mail from home and getting _letters_ from home. A note from Daniel Pierce hadn’t been absent from mail call in a long time, and even though it could be for any host of reasons, Hawkeye couldn’t help but remember how the bitterness had crept in while BJ exclaimed over a new story from Peg about Erin or Charles bragged about Honoria’s night out at the BSO. Given the kind of week from hell he’d had, he felt he was more than entitled to a good sulk.

The understanding look slowly transformed into something else that gave Hawkeye the sinking suspicion that BJ was about to do something rash and well-intentioned that might ultimately just irritate him more. The smile was back, appearing gradually and forebodingly, and as soon as Hawkeye opened his mouth to say _anything_ that would stop him, BJ sat up and turned to the Swamp at large. “Hey everybody,” he said cheerfully, and Hawkeye groaned and buried his face back in his pillow. “I’ve never had a sleepover before but I’ve always wanted to play some of those party games. Who’s interested?” 

That made him perk up a bit; BJ had never been to a sleepover before? What were they doing to children in California? 

“I can’t imagine doing anything right now as plebeian as playing childish party games,” Charles scoffed. “If you don’t mind, I would prefer to sleep.”

“Don’t act so fast Major,” Colonel Potter cut in. “When I was a boy, sleeping over a fellas house was the most fun you could have. Even at fourteen years old, having Billy Jensen and Stu Sutcliffe over was the best time for miles around, especially when my mother would let us sleep in the barn overnight. The horses couldn’t keep quiet all night and I found hay up my shirt for more than a week, but staying up there, tellin’ stories and drinking stolen hootch, well, I still remember it now don’t I?” 

Charles rolled his eyes, but this only seemed to encourage BJ more. “That’s what I mean! I never got to have those times, and if we’re staying up anyways in case wounded come in early, we might as well do something to pass the time.” 

“I’d be interested in joining in,” Father Mulcahy put in politely, sitting down on his cot. “We should probably wait until everyone is here before we start, however.” 

“Who’re we missing, Radar?” Potter asked, as Radar had been in charge of rooming assignments for the evening. 

“Oh, uh, that’d just be Klinger sir. I passed him on the way back from the latrines, and he said he’d be over soon, he was just picking up something.” 

No sooner had he spoken than the door opened to reveal the man himself, drawing cheers at their missing member finally joining the group. 

“Where you been, Klinger?” Radar asked.

“I told you, picking up something,” he replied, and stepped further into the room to reveal a reluctant-looking Margaret, who Klinger seemed to have half-dragged to the Swamp by her elbow. 

“Who knew you could get nurses delivered these days?” Hawkeye said, steamrolling ahead even as Margaret swung her threatening gaze towards him. “Klinger if you’re taking new orders, how about Nurse Bigelow, my tent, around 8 this Thursday—”

“I’m sure I’m going to want to clock you for whatever else comes out of your mouth Pierce, so you might as well quit now,” Margaret snapped. “And Klinger didn’t deliver me so much as prodded me non-stop to join this crowded tent of miscreants.” Looking around, she quickly smiled and amended, “Except for you Colonel, Father.” Potter and Father Mulcahy nodded, the Father giving her a small smile of acceptance.

“Major, I just wanted to make sure you felt included in the party we were having tonight. We wouldn’t want you to feel left out,” Klinger said, shutting the door firmly behind him and pulling his housecoat tighter against the chill. 

“How’d you know we were throwing a party, we only started talking about it a minute ago!” Radar said wonderingly. 

Klinger brushed by him to the cot between Charles and the Father, saying over his shoulder through still-chattering teeth, “What do you know, your powers of foreshadowing are rubbing off on me. Next thing you know I’ll be able to predict when and how I get to go home.”

“Klinger you could know the who, what, when, where _and_ how of the end of this thing and still not get a Section 8,” Hawkeye called over. 

“That is somewhat true,” Father Mulcahy contemplated, head cocked to the side. “Only He truly knows what plans are in store for us.”

“He?” BJ asked Hawkeye.

“MacArthur,” Hawkeye replied knowingly, which made BJ laugh abruptly. Hawkeye wished just as abruptly that he could bottle that sound.

Margaret stood unmoving still by the door, hands on her hips and looking disapproving. “What kind of party is this anyway?” she demanded. “I find it highly inappropriate for me to spend the night in a tent full of men.”

“You’re not the only woman here, Margaret,” Charles cut in, not lifting his head from where he was deeply engrossed in a thick tome Hawkeye was pretty sure was the entire collected works of Shakespeare, the pretentious creep. “Klinger’s here as well. Fitting, then, that both the ladies were fashionably late.”

“I resent that!” Margaret cried. 

“Yeah, me too!” agreed Klinger, turning his now lotion-smeared face towards Charles, gold hoops swinging. “I’m all man, I can’t help that I dress better than the rest of you people.”

“You really put us to shame, Klinger,” Hawkeye said, pouring a martini for himself and BJ. “Like now for instance, I’ve never seen you look lovelier.” 

“Oh, buzz off Captain,” Klinger said mildly, focusing his attention on his reflection in the compact he was holding. “Nobody look at me, I haven’t got my post-lotion glow going on yet.”

“Why don’t we get some games going?” BJ asked the room again, accepting the glass Hawkeye handed over to him. “Then, Margaret, you can decide if you want to leave or stay.” He added seriously, “It won’t be the same without you though.” 

Despite the amusement he felt at Margaret’s outrage upon her delivery to the Swamp, Hawkeye still found himself hoping she’d stay. She provided a perfect source of distraction from his disappointment of a squashed night of quality time with BJ, but more than that he’d started to miss her throughout the week. They spent plenty of time in the OR together and eating in the mess tent, but inhabiting those spaces meant also inhabiting the most extreme of conditions. 

Either they were pumped full of adrenaline in OR, calling and answering clipped commands for scalpels and more suction and desperately trying to keep the kids they worked on alive, or they were practically comatose by mealtime, moving through molasses with eyelids weighing a thousand pounds as they tried to get something sustaining into their systems. It was no substitute for conscious consciousness, where no lives were immediately in danger and they had more than three hours of sleep under their belts. Under better circumstances and when Margaret let people in and let herself live a little bit she was almost delightful. He hoped she’d see the proffered olive branch as what it was and allow herself to enjoy the slowed-down quality time they were sharing. 

BJ was sincere in his invitation, too. Trapper had always been too much of a jockish prankster like Hawkeye, and Margaret could never seem to stomach the both of them at once for long periods of time, especially with Frank still there whining constant complaints about them in her ear. With Frank and Trapper gone, though, and BJ’s earnestness in Trap’s place, Hawkeye figured that Margaret could recognize something of herself in him. They both kept themselves back in some ways, played their cards close to their chests, so you knew what it meant to them to be vulnerable and genuine. Hawkeye watched, fascinated, as BJ’s words made her eyes and mouth soften ever so slightly, and was therefore unsurprised when she said, “Fine, alright. Someone has to impose some order if things get out of hand.” She hurried again to tack on, “Nothing against your good example Colonel, Father.” 

Potter, with a newly poured martini in his hand, lifted his glass to her and simply said, “Glad to have you join us, Major.” 

“So c’mon, let’s get started!” BJ enthused, sitting at the edge of his cot and rubbing his hands together. “We should do it all: Would You Rather, Truth or Dare, Spin the Bottle even.”

“What’s Spin the Bottle?” Radar asked Hawkeye out of the side of his mouth. 

“It’s how your parents made you, Radar,” Hawkeye said, as sweetly and earnestly as he could just to see how much he could horrify Radar. He succeeded immensely. 

Seemingly unable to keep his nose out of other people’s business, Charles added, “Radar, Spin the Bottle is a pedestrian little game that drunken teenagers play while sneaking cheap booze in the woods as a means of unashamedly groping each other. It’s vile, and unbecoming to do in front of a priest.” 

“However, ‘vile and unbecoming to do in front of a priest’ is just another way of describing Charles’ attempts to sing along to his opera records,” BJ put in amiably, and Hawkeye couldn’t help but let out a ringing laugh verging on a cackle. Leave it to BJ to pull out something that to anyone else would be a mundane dig, but to Charles, who had the softest underbelly of anyone Hawkeye had ever met, would be an attack on his honor of the highest degree. BJ was unsuspecting like that, capable of those kinds of sneak-attack retorts that were flamboyant from Hawkeye but blindsiding from BJ. They delighted Hawkeye far too much; they made him want to follow along in BJ’s wake after he did it, to say to the person on the receiving end, _Never saw that coming, did you! I’ve seen him do this a million times but it still gets me every time that I get to be in on the joke_.

Charles spluttered his outrage at BJ, who had promptly begun ignoring him as soon as his barb was delivered. Smooth as ice, quick and slippery as it too. “Circle up everybody, let’s choose a game.”

Everyone shuffled their cots forward to perch on the edge of them like BJ had, and started arguing over what games paired best with the long, interminable evening set out before them. Colonel Potter pointed out that they shouldn’t stay up too late with choppers set to come at any time, and firmly established they should set a time when the majority of them could get some rest. BJ, however, drove a hard bargain for at least a few rounds of Truth or Dare, which secretly amused Hawkeye. 

“Who’s going first then?” BJ asked the group at large. 

Surprising all that assembled, Margaret spoke up. “I’ll go; might as well volunteer so I don’t have to wait around.”

“Truth or dare then, Margaret,” BJ asked. 

“Truth,” she said decisively, narrowing her eyes at Hawkeye. “I’m not letting _anyone_ make me do some crazy antic so you can have a good laugh.” 

“Margaret you’re among friends!” Hawkeye protested, wanting to laugh but knowing she was still on the fence about even being there. “Now if I actually wanted to make you do something crazy I’d have you come with Bigelow, my tent, around 8 this Thursday—”

“Ha ha,” she said sarcastically, firmly cutting him off. Turning back to BJ she urged him on. “Well, I said truth! What do you want to ask me?”

In a strange turn of events, Hawkeye thought later, Margaret’s jump headfirst into the game made things a little less tame than he thought they might be, especially with the Colonel and the Father in attendance to keep down the rowdiness. Under BJ’s questioning (“What was the most rebellious thing you did as a teenager?”), she admitted to taking a pair of scissors to her hair the first time she’d gotten drunk with the other army kids on her father’s base at fifteen, turning her then long hair into a jagged mess that fell only just below her chin and which horrified her mother. 

“I’d wanted a crew cut when I was five you see,” she giggled, halfway through a martini that BJ had passed her at the start of her story. “And my first stupid, drunken instinct was to remember that and say, ‘Why not!’ All the boys had them, and with my face at fifteen I could’ve pulled it off.” 

“You could pull it off now Margaret,” BJ said, characteristically kind.

“Speaking of Margaret pulling things off…” Hawkeye started, characteristically fresh. 

She smiled at BJ and took a sip from her glass, walloping Hawkeye on the arm without looking up from her drink. Rubbing at the bruise that would no doubt appear by morning, Hawkeye couldn’t help but admire her; the woman sure could multitask. 

After that it was like the floodgates opened, spilling in laughter and alcohol in equal measure. Under the rules of the game, Margaret Dared Charles to do the Lindy with her, resulting in utter disgust from him (“Any dance with the name ‘hop’ in it should be reserved purely for children”), shouting from Margaret (“You call that a spin Winchester?!”) and absolute raucous laughter from the rest of them. Cots were kicked over as the two tried to swing through the Swamp, and at one point Charles flung her out so hard Margaret toppled into Radar’s lap, which led to BJ and Hawkeye half collapsed on each other in fits of hysteria and many stammered utterances of, “Oh my goodness, oh I’m sorry sir!” from Radar as he somehow tried to set Margaret back on her feet without touching her. 

Afterwards, Charles, wanting to seek revenge on them all but unfortunately being the one to challenge Father Mulcahy, tempered his question for Truth by asking if the Father had ever broken any of the Ten Commandments. 

“I have,” he replied. 

Clearly surprised, Charles asked, “Which one?” 

“Ah, but that’s not the question you asked, was it?” the Father said, his voice full of mirth. 

“Father, you sly devil,” Hawkeye grinning, lifting his martini glass to him in a toast. Father Mulcahy blushed, but with it now being his turn, Dared Hawkeye to do ten pushups in a row. 

“If the thirteen year-old boys I coached could do fifty every practice,” the Father reasoned as Hawkeye looked up at him balefully from his position on the floor, “you should be able to do ten no problem Hawkeye.” 

To Hawkeye’s momentary relief BJ interjected, “But Father, those boys had a clear advantage over him.”

“How’s that?”

“They clearly didn’t have the delicate spindles that Hawk has for arms,” he replied, grinning down at Hawkeye’s now forceful glare as the rest of the group laughed. 

“I’ll be remembering that one, Beej,” Hawkeye said darkly, and set about his Dare as fast as possible. 

Feeling somewhat vindictive after collapsing back onto his cot, Hawkeye made Radar speak only in an imitation of Marilyn Monroe for the next half hour, which made him cackle whenever Radar opened his mouth. He especially lost it when, with ten minutes left, Radar excused himself in a high-pitched voice to go to the latrine. At this, Radar seemed to have had enough. 

With an exit dramatic enough to make Klinger proud (and indeed, he gave Radar a standing ovation as he left), Radar turned at the door, asked Hawkeye exasperatedly and yet still in character, “Oh, haven't you bothered me enough, you big banana-head?,” spun on his heel and left the Swamp without waiting on an answer. Hawkeye couldn’t stop himself from keeling over on the floor for that one.

They had their more sober (in only one sense of the word) moments as well. Having chosen Truth, a very earnest Radar asked Klinger in his breathy Marilyn voice if he was still going to wear dresses back home in Toledo. Hawkeye and the rest laughed, Hawk even patting Radar on the back for the question, when they all seemed to realize the one person who _wasn’t_ laughing was the same person to whom the question had been posed. Klinger looked uncertain and almost afraid, an expression Hawkeye couldn’t ever recall having seen outside of his more melodramatic attempts at a Section 8. 

A hush had fallen over the group for a moment or two before he finally spoke. “Thing is kid,” he said slowly, focusing intently on Radar’s face as if to forget the rest of them were sitting there. “I want to. Seriously. I know it started out as a way to get me home, and that’s still part of it. But it’s...I don’t know how to explain it. It’s started to feel more strange to be outta them than in them, but it’s not something that’d fly back home, not for real. I don’t know what’s going on with me, but I also feel like going home is so far off in the future I can’t even picture it one way or the other. I guess I’ll just, just cross that bridge when I come to it.” 

There was a silence that followed, during which BJ and Hawkeye shared a significant look. _Well,_ they seemed to say in tandem, _that wasn’t where I expected this to go._

Tentatively, Father Mulcahy piped up on Klinger’s other side, laying a gentle hand on his shoulder and speaking haltingly. “I know it must be difficult, Klinger, to anticipate the joy of going home alongside the fear of potentially having to let this part of you go when you do. But the way I see it, my son, is that the joy you find at present is in the way you dress and all that comes with it. You are entitled to that joy; it is allowing you to make it through a genuinely horrific part of your life. Because of that, I would encourage you to place faith in your family that, if this happiness in your wardrobe continues for you beyond this experience of such tumultuousness, they will understand and accept you for it.” 

Klinger looked lost for words, but Potter spoke up and said, voice rough with emotion, “Well put Padre.” 

“And besides Klinger,” Hawkeye put in, trying to be helpful but also not able to stand the tension any longer, “the worst they can do is tar and feather you, and if anyone can make an outfit like that work it’d be you.” 

This time Klinger laughed along with them all, and to Hawkeye’s relief the night was restored to its former high spirits. Even so, Hawkeye saw the glimmer in Klinger’s eyes as the conversation continued and the small, grateful glances he threw towards the Father as the evening wore on. 

All the while Hawkeye snuck looks as well, directing his glances at BJ and wondering if this sleepover of his was panning out the way he wanted. If he was truthful with himself he was never not sneaking looks at BJ, but he found that tonight especially, in the low light of their tent and in the company of the dearest people they had this side of the Pacific, his best friend had never looked so full of light. It didn’t matter what he was doing, either; BJ laughing and dodging Charles’ clumsy attempts at dancing, BJ attempting a handstand on a dare from the Colonel and landing with his long legs sprawled on Hawkeye’s cot, BJ _everywhere_ in the tent all at once somehow, in the light, the laughter, the heat from the small furnace...

It was with a jolt that he realized how good of a time he was having, that not two hours ago he’d wanted to descend into sleep and not interact with anyone, especially if it meant sharing BJ with them. Without realizing it he’d allowed the devious, dastardly BJ Hunnicutt to completely change his mood, and as he flicked his eyes yet again towards him, Hawkeye couldn’t help but wonder if this had been his plan all along. 

~*~

After a few hours, Colonel Potter had Radar get in touch with ICorps to get an updated estimate of when they’d have casualties in, and when he returned to report that choppers were due in a little less than two hours, the Colonel suggested that some of them try to get some rest. “The rest of us will go check in on the patients and night nurses, just to make sure everything’s up to snuff before we get the next boatload in here,” Potter said, taking a reluctant Charles and slightly bleary Father Mulcahy with him for assistance, and sending Radar, who had somehow ended up curled up and snoring on Hawkeye’s cot, back to his bed in the office in case any calls came through. 

“Sorry Hawkeye,” Radar said, rubbing his eyes and stumbling a little towards the door. “I didn’t mean to steal your bed or nothing.” 

“Don’t worry your pretty little head Radar,” Hawkeye said cheerfully as he watched him go. “I’ll forgive your attempted bed theft if you forgive my previously vicious remarks towards your fuzzy friends. My spirits, once sunk lower than gutter level, now fly higher than the choppers that’ll be breaking up this soiree any moment now.”

Radar just looked more befuddled and sleep-rumpled than before, if that was possible. 

“That was Hawkeye for ‘good night and sorry I threatened to freeze your guinea pigs earlier,’” BJ supplied helpfully. 

“Thanks once again to my trusty translator, who knows just how to tone my verbosity down,” Hawkeye toasted him, then froze in his tracks and gave his glass a second look. “Jesus _shit_ I sound like Charles, what’s in this stuff?”

Margaret and BJ just collapsed together laughing as Radar, more unconscious than not, waved them and a loudly-snoring Klinger off as he left the Swamp. 

Margaret hiccupped, topping up her own drink and trying to be sage through her giggles. “If you don’t want to turn into Charles just keep a firm hold on your ‘rs’ and I think you’ll be in alright shape.”

“But if you mention any walks along the Esplanade or visits to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, we’ll know you’re a lost cause,” BJ added, and the two nodded seriously before breaking into snorts and more laughter. 

“You two are a laugh a minute, you know that?” Hawkeye commented dryly, joining them on the floor by the heat in a rough triangle. It had gone unsaid that when Potter recommended they try and rest that the three of them would inevitably spend the rest of the night up and about. If there was one thing they specialized more in than medicine, it was operating at full capacity with less than no sleep. 

Even so, Hawkeye noticed Margaret’s eyes starting to droop, and how heavily she leaned against the foot of Hawkeye’s chair. Sunrise would come with the wounded, and he couldn’t blame her for her exhaustion. Almost against his will he blurted out, “I’m glad you stayed tonight Margaret.” 

Just as surprisingly, Margaret grinned, a mix of the lethal martinis and pure tiredness causing her to say, “Me too.” She paused, and smiled even wider. “It was worth it even to have Charles almost kill me trying to Lindy.” 

The three of them broke out into laughter again, Margaret shushing them through snorts of laughter so as to not wake Klinger. They finally fell into a companionable silence, letting the cacophony of crickets and the distant footsteps of the nigh watchman, once relegated to muteness in the background of their conversation, creep back to the fore. Hawkeye looked at Margaret, face still flushed with drink and laughter, and felt such affection for her he nearly couldn’t stand it. She had somehow become one of his dearest friends in this place, this woman who was fierce and whip-smart and pretty damn funny when she let herself be, and he thought to himself that a part of him was already hurting for the time when he wouldn’t get to see her anymore. 

And if pondering Margaret was painful, shifting his attention to BJ was unbearable. He was so hard to ignore though, he always was, and while Margaret shone like a star sitting there in the corner, BJ shone like…like...

 _A slightly bigger star,_ his brain suggested. He huffed a laugh at himself. _So much for that alcohol-enhanced vocabulary._

He was serious though; almost since the second he’d met BJ, BJ who got it, understood it all in the space of a moment, he’d loved him against all wiser judgement, and knew it to boot. Because of that, Hawkeye suspected that as soon as he’d had this realization strike him, as soon as BJ said, “Rudyard Kipling'' and they’d shared a drink and a series of looks over a nervous Radar’s head, he’d simultaneously started doing the thing he just realized he’d done with Margaret, and had started to miss him already. How _insane_ is that? Maybe not so insane in the moment, having just lost Trap with absolutely no warning and being worried that this new guy, who he liked very much, might disappear into thin air in the same fashion. 

And maybe not so insane now, after he’d very definitively gotten BJ home in one piece and by this point had shared a slew of memories and even good times with him and only dug himself a deeper hole. He was only making it harder on himself, but when he looked at BJ, who just then was still grinning that bright white smile of his and politely humoring whatever Margaret was sleepily saying, he was just. Just absolutely hopeless. Nothing at all could be done, about him or BJ or his desire for him. He downed the rest of his glass and set it down decisively next to him. _There. No more for me tonight_. 

He jumped a bit when the sound of a glass hitting the floor, like his just had, was doubled, and looked up to see Margaret had done the same thing. “I think that’s all for me tonight fellas,” she said, ever so slowly and with BJ’s hand on her elbow, rising to her feet. “I probably shouldn’t have stayed up this late as it is.”

“Aww Margaret, are you sure?” BJ asked. “We never even got to spin the bottle, the sleepover experience isn’t complete.” 

“All the more reason to turn in then,” she said, trying to fix them both with a stern look and utterly failing. “I’m not trying to assist in any adultery tonight, and Hawkeye whatever you’re about to suggest, I want no part in that either.”

Hawkeye closed his mouth, soundly rejected. 

She climbed into her cot and was just about to turn her back on them when Hawkeye spoke up again. “Margaret?” 

“Hmm?”

“Shaving a face and shaving a head aren’t too different you know.” 

She turned towards them. “Yeah?” she said, quietly tentative. 

“Just takes a little bit longer,” BJ added, playing along immediately and making Hawkeye a little crazy with the ease at which he did so. “We’ve cut each other’s hair before plenty of times. You ever want a fresh chop, come on by.” 

“Salon’s always open,” Hawkeye said, carefully making sure she knew they weren’t making fun of her. 

The briefest of moments passed as Margaret looked at the both of them, finally managing a choked-sounding, “Thank you.” Hawkeye thought he might have also seen a glimmer of tears in her eyes, but she hurriedly turned away and seemed to be asleep within moments. 

Hawkeye turned back to BJ, who gave him a small smile. “And then there were two,” BJ said. Hawkeye gave a small laugh, but tried hard not to break up the stillness they’d allowed to fall over them. 

So that he could stop himself from just silently gazing at BJ, Hawkeye asked, “Was the sleepover all you thought it was cracked up to be? I still can’t believe you’d never been to one before. They were maybe some of my favorite teenage memories.”

To his complete confusion BJ grinned and said, “Of course I’ve been to a sleepover before.” 

Hawkeye stared at him. “What?”

“What do you mean what?”

“I _mean_ , what! What am I missing here?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about Hawk,” BJ said innocently, and Hawkeye wanted to strangle him. “When was the last time you heard from your dad?” 

Instead of confusing him even more, Hawkeye felt something click. _BJ Hunnicutt, you well-intentioned sonofabitch._

“Is that what this was all about?” Hawkeye asked, completely ignoring BJ’s question. “Because I said before I didn’t get any letters from home?”

BJ’s devilish grinned faded, but he still looked at Hawkeye with undisguised warmth. Hawkeye felt like he was suddenly too close to a fire, to something so comforting but liable to send him up in flames at any moment. “We’ve had a helluva week,” BJ said slowly. “I guess I thought it’d be good for all of us to let off a little steam.” Hawkeye thought he’d stop there, but he kept going. “I know you’ve had a hard time of it, and not hearing from your dad hasn’t made it any better. I just...” He laughed, looking sheepish and shaking his head. “You’re not gonna let me get away with this one.”

“What, what what?” Hawkeye said quickly, too rushed to know what he’d say to pretend not to be serious. 

“I missed your laugh!” BJ admitted, finally looking straight at him, and Hawkeye felt himself freeze. “Your funny, honking laugh, you haven’t laughed all week and I-things have just been...sad without it.” 

He was at a loss for words and his mind was a jumble of happiness and terror and an utter inability to process any of it or what it could mean and all he could spit out was, “Did you just compare my laugh to a honk?” 

“That’s what you got out of that!” BJ whisper-yelled, laughing even as he tried to be indignant. 

“Well yeah, ‘cause now I have to know what kind of honk we’re talking about!” Hawkeye retorted, focusing on the joke and BJ’s laughter and making sure his brain didn’t collapse at the thought of BJ orchestrating an entire evening so Hawkeye would _laugh_ . “Is it a clown’s nose honk? A goose’s honk? A car horn honk? Do I even _wanna_ know?”

BJ pretended to think about it seriously before pronouncing, “Definitely most like a goose. A whole gaggle of geese, to be exact. A chorus of rowdy, hysterical geese, that’s what your laugh sounds like.” 

Hawkeye couldn’t help but fall back laughing at that, and he realized that his laugh was indeed verging on goose-like, which only made him and BJ laugh harder, though BJ tried valiantly to shush them both. 

“Alright alright, hold it hold it hold it,” Hawkeye managed, once he’d finally caught his breath and sat back up. BJ was still trying to stifle his laughter, a hand clamped firmly over his mouth and shoulders shaking. Hawkeye edged closer to him, earnestly trying to make his point. “Beej, Beej seriously, okay. I appreciate your ardent love for my goose-esque Greek chorus of a laugh—” This threatened to set BJ off yet again, but Hawkeye grabbed him firmly by the shoulders so he could make him focus. “So in return for such efforts, I will round out the evening however you like. Even if you’re an absolute snake who lied about never having a sleepover, I will be a gentleman and finish out this elaborate plan in the manner of your choosing.” 

Having finally calmed down enough to respond, BJ gulped down a deep breath to settle himself and said, in another one-two punch to Hawkeye’s solar plexus, “Can I interest you in a game of spin the bottle?” 

He said it so casually too, so much so that for a moment Hawkeye wasn’t sure if it was said as some weird extension of their joking around. Smooth and slippery BJ Hunnicutt strikes again, placid and straightforward, except this time it’s Hawkeye that’s been blindsided, who’s had the legs kicked out from under him. And suddenly they were back in the stillness of the middle of the night, perched on the edge of morning before the sun had thought to make an appearance. They were back, and BJ wasn’t laughing anymore, was looking intently back at him, and Hawkeye still had his hands firmly planted on BJ’s shoulders. He thought about refusing, about playing off the joke, but morbid curiosity more than anything else won out, and before he could think better about it he took a deep breath and said, “You’re being very persistent about this spin the bottle thing, you know that?” 

BJ only shrugged, still laser-focused on Hawkeye’s face. “Can’t leave well enough alone with this one, I’m afraid.”

“Well can you at least supply the bottle? I’m fresh out of my usual inventory,” Hawkeye asked, stalling out of fearful instinct. 

As if on cue, BJ, his eyes never leaving Hawkeye’s (and what was _that_ about, he wondered), reached a hand behind him and pulled out a small beer bottle, the kind they always had at the O Club. Looking from the bottle to Hawkeye, BJ asked gently, “Mind if I do the honors?” 

Hawkeye nodded dumbly, not trusting himself to say anything else. This moment felt intolerably fragile, like if he made a single sound or moved an inch BJ would disappear in a puff of smoke, and he’d hate living forever with the thought of where the hell all this was going. 

BJ looked away long enough to place the bottle on the floor and give it a spin. He looked back at Hawkeye before it even came to a stop though, eyes flicking over his face as if searching for something, all before he began inching closer. 

Even with all of this, with every facet of the evening being replayed in a highlight reel in Hawkeye’s head, he still found himself dumbstruck when BJ finally kissed him. BJ caught him mid-sentence too; he’d been mumbling, attempting to ask if BJ wanted to check who the bottle had landed on, when he no longer could say anything at all. It didn’t matter anyways, as any possible thought that could’ve existed in his brain beforehand was swiftly obliterated with the feeling of BJ kissing him. 

That heat he’d felt so vividly before just by looking at BJ consumed him now, and while he felt the intensity of it, he hadn’t imagined the softness, hadn’t taken the time to consider the possibility of it. He tried to focus on noting every gentle detail: BJ’s nose barely nudging his, what he realized was one of BJ’s hands in his hair, his thumb slowly stroking through it, his other hand that had found Hawkeye’s own and was brushing it up and down, all comforting motions that overwhelmed him as soon as he’d taken stock of them. He realized he still had a hand on BJ’s shoulder, and, suddenly worried he’d startle him, moved it slowly down BJ’s chest to clutch at the top of his shirt, firmly anchoring himself to this moment, to BJ himself. Hawkeye had a vague thought that, if he thought he was insane before for missing BJ before he’d even left, the combination of _this_ and what would come after would surely be true insanity. He held onto BJ’s shirt a little tighter, pushed a little more urgently into the softness of his mouth. 

Just as gently as he began this scrambling of Hawkeye’s brain, BJ broke them apart, staying close enough to lay his forehead against Hawkeye’s and to fix him again with those damned eyes. His fingers were still restless in Hawkeye’s hair, and Hawkeye had to close his eyes against the uneasiness that began to creep back in. 

“Was that uh,” Hawkeye asked, his voice broken and scratchy and quiet as he could make it. “Was that a ‘kiss and make it better’ situation? Like do I uh, do I get a bandage and a pat on the head too?”

He felt BJ sigh against him. “The sleepover, with the games and the laughing and our friends, that was the ‘kiss and make it better’ situation.” Hawkeye felt warm lips press and linger on his forehead, and opened his eyes to face BJ again. BJ smiled at him. He seemed unsure all of a sudden, and Hawkeye couldn’t fathom why. “That was a kiss. A long overdue, long anticipated kiss.” His eyes darted away from Hawkeye, and said, “A hopefully not unwelcome one too, I didn’t mean to—I would never want you to feel obligated or anything—”

“Beej,” Hawkeye interrupted and, summoning his courage and the knowledge that _he had this right_ , kissed him again, fierce and certain with no room to misunderstand. He cupped BJ’s face and, in the spirit of BJ grounding Hawkeye before, tried to return the favor, tried to give him his confidence and reciprocate as loudly as he could short of running outside and screaming it. _You took care of me all night,_ he tried to tell BJ. _Let me do it too. Let me make you sure. Let’s seal the deal on this._

At one point he did pull back, because a thought that sounded awfully like Margaret making a comment about adultery stopped him in his tracks. “Peg?” he asked, opening his eyes to look BJ full in the face. 

“Oh,” BJ said, sounding surprised, like he’d forgotten he even had a wife. “ _Peg who?_ ” he could’ve said, and the tone would’ve been the same. The idea was so absurd Hawkeye couldn’t help but laugh a bit. He was in the middle of wrecking BJ’s marriage and he couldn't not laugh. 

“‘Oh,’ he says,” Hawkeye teased him. “C’mon Beej you remember Peg, I’m pretty sure she’s the mother of your child or something?” 

To his surprise BJ chuckled slightly too. “I meant ‘oh’ as in, I forgot to explain.” 

“Explain?” 

“It’s uh, a little complicated,” he said haltingly, like he was carefully picking out each of his words. “But essentially, the way me and Peg talk about it, I’ve got a Hawkeye, and she’s got a Val.” BJ must have seen the confusion still present on his face, so he added meaningfully, “The same way I care about you, Peg cares about her _friend_ Val.” He especially emphasized “friend,” and suddenly Hawkeye understood.

“ _Oh_ ,” he echoed.

“We figured each other out a few months before I left for Korea, and Peg only met Val a few weeks after that. We’re still adjusting but it’s, it’s more...truthful than before.” BJ looked earnestly at him, and if Hawkeye could’ve burst from love for this man he would have. 

“And you never thought to say anything about this before?” he asked, trying not to sound desperate as he made sense of his world being flipped. 

“I couldn’t just announce it, plus there was still no guarantee you felt the same way,” BJ said. Hawkeye would’ve buried his face in his hands if he could at the ludicrousness of him not being absolutely ruined for anyone but BJ Hunnicutt, and at BJ somehow still not realizing this. 

“So you thought you’d just make a move on me at a sleepover like we’re fifteen or something?” Hawkeye teased him. 

“What can I say, I’m like Don Lockwood,” BJ teased back. “I believe anything’s possible with the proper setting.”

Hawkeye couldn’t help but laugh softly at that, looking back at him with what he knew must be the goofiest of expressions on his face. 

“So when you say Peg cares about Val the same way you care about me,” he asked carefully, not able to keep his curiosity that much more in check. “You wanna tell me more about that?” 

BJ opened his mouth to reply, leaning back in with a smile on his lips, and--

“ _Attention all personnel, incoming wounded! Party starts early today folks, put on your dancing shoes and find your partner in the compound, stat!”_

Hawkeye readied himself to absolutely rant and rave as the sound of choppers made themselves known and many pairs of boots literally hit the ground running. He was all set to unabashedly rail against it all, had already started to shout, “Oh for crying out loud—!” when BJ dove back in one more time, kissing him quickly but firmly, and most importantly shutting him up. 

He pulled back, and gave his biggest grin of the night, huge and beautiful and just for Hawkeye. “All the ways I care about you?” he asked. “‘Let me count the ways,’ as a great poet once said, and every time I come up with a new one, I’ll let you know. Sound good?” 

Hawkeye gave him an answering grin. “Best plan you’ve ever had.”

“You sure?” BJ said. “Because I’ve got quite the back catalogue to go through. It might take some time to tell you all of them.” 

Rising to his feet, Hawkeye offered a hand down to him. “You can’t shake me that easily, buster.” 

BJ grabbed his hand, and jumped to his feet. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed this!! A few footnotes that are part of the doc I was working on while writing:  
> 1\. The title's from a John Denver song called Annie's Song, which you should check out if you haven't because it's absolutely gorgeous  
> 2\. Potter's friends Billy Jensen and Stu Sutcliffe started as two stand-in names that I eventually left in because I thought they were old-timey enough but are in fact the names of real life guys! Billy Jensen is an investigative journalist and author who hosts a true crime podcast with detective Paul Holes, and Stuart Sutcliffe was an og member of the Beatles who passed away before they got famous. The more you know!  
> 3\. I don't find Shakespeare inherently pretentious (I'm gay, Shakespeare is my lifeblood), but Charles reading a huge volume of it in front of everyone is inherently pretentious  
> 4\. Radar as Marilyn Monroe quotes her 1950 film "The Asphalt Jungle"  
> 5\. BJ's comment about missing Hawkeye's laugh? That's for all you Merthur stans still out here in 2020 god bless
> 
> That's all folks! I'm @thatkindamusicjustsoothesthesoul on tumblr if you'd like to come chat, thank you so much for reading!


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